Key to Umbria: Città di Castello
 


St Veronica Giuliani (9th July) and

Blessed Florida Cevoli (12th June)


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St Veronica Giuliani (9th July)


An entry in the Roman Martyrology under 9th July reads: “At Città di Castello, St Veronica Giuliani, a Capuchin nun, abbess of the monastery of that town.  Born at Mercatello, in the diocese of Urbania, she became illustrious by her great love for suffering and other virtues, and by her heavenly gifts.  She was inscribed among holy virgins by Pope Gregory XVI”.

St Veronica Giuliani(who was christened as Ursula) was born in Mercatello sul Metauro, near Urbino in 1660.  She joined the nunnery of Santa Chiara delle Cappuccine in Città di Castello (later Santa Veronica Giuliani) in 1678.  She led an exemplary life and apparently received the stigmata in 1697.  She became abbess in 1716 and died in 1727. 

After her death, a figure of the cross was supposedly found impressed upon her heart, and her body remained incorrupt.  Pope Pius VII beatified her in 1804 and Gregory XVI canonised her in 1839.  Her relics are venerated in the nuns’ church, which is open to the public. 

A figure of St Veronica Giuliani was erected in front of the sanctuary of Santa Maria del Belvedere in 1997 to mark the third centenary of her stigmatisation.  She had recorded in her diary a visit to the new sanctuary here in 1677, while it was still in construction. 





Blessed Florida Cevoli (12th June)

     

The Blessed Florida was born Lucrezia Cevoli  to a noble family in 1685.  She received the name Florida (in honour of St Floridus) when she joined the Capuchin nuns at the Monastero di Santa Veronica in 1704.  She was a strict follower of the example of St Veronica (above), and was renowned for her sanctity.  Among her visitors were Princess Violante de’ Medici of Tuscany and Princess Maria Clementina Sowieski, the daughter-in-law of the deposed James II of England.  She became the abbess of Santa Veronica in 1742.

When the people of Città di Castello rebelled against papal rule in 1758, the Blessed Florida’s mediation helped ishop Giovanni Battista Lattanzi to secure an amnesty for the city from Pope Clement XIII.

The Blessed Florida died in the convent in 1767.  Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1993.